Bush`s Address Excerpts From President Bush`s Inaugural Address:

January 21, 1989

-- COMMON GROUND: ``We meet on democracy`s front porch. A good place to talk as neighbors, and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences are, for a moment, suspended ....``

-- THE FUTURE: ``I come before you and assume the presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man`s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient lifeless tree.``

-- AMERICA`S PURPOSE: ``America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral purpose. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of a nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless, lost and roaming -- there are children who have nothing, no love and no normalcy -- there are those who cannot free themselves of enslavement to whatever addition -- drugs, welfare, demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be conquered, the rough crime of the streets.

-- DEFICIT: ``We have a deficit to bring down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need .... We must bring the federal budget into balance. We must ensure that America stands before the world united: strong, at peace, and fiscally sound. But things may be difficult ....``

-- THE SOVIETS: ``While keeping our alliances and friendships around the world strong, ever strong, we will continue the new closeness with the Soviet Union, consistent both with our security and with progress.``